Indian Express 30.08.2010
1 term over, no uniform for 25,000 civic school students
NitinPatil Tags : corporation Posted: Mon Aug 30 2010, 06:26 hrs
Pune: Promise Unkept : Authorities yet to float tender for shoes to wardsThe school board of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has failed to keep its promise to provide uniforms to civic school students this year too. About 30 per cent of students are yet to get them despite a promise for the same, first by July end and then by August 15. Also, the authorities have not issued a tender to purchase shoes for students.
The school board has attributed the delay to the bad quality of cloth supplied initially by the Maharashtra State Handloom Corporation that provides school uniform fabric to the civic body. Around 25,000 of the nearly 85,000 students in the 300-odd civic schools are yet to get uniforms. The civic body had allocated Rs 4 crore for the uniforms.
“Delay in distribution of school uniforms has become habitual now. The school body claims are all humbug as almost 40 per cent students are yet to get uniforms. The overall mismanagement of the school board has once again come to the fore. This issue was discussed in the Assembly, yet the administration has hardly moved,” Vijay Kumbhar of Surajya Sangharsha Samiti said.
The school board admits that it is yet to keep its word. “Though we are yet to ascertain the number of students who have not got uniforms, it is true that many are yet to get them,” said Ramchandra Jadhav, education officer of the board.
Board chairperson Sangeeta Tiwari said, “The Maharashtra Handloom Corporation had dispatched the fabric, but there were six bundles of bad quality cloth and hence had to be changed. This delayed the procedure of stitching the uniforms. Students from 60 schools are yet to be provided uniforms.”
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) corporator Ravindra Vagaskar said, “When we sought details of school uniforms, we were told that the fabric provided by the Handloom Corporation did not suffice initially. Hence, an additional lot of fabric was brought, which too reportedly fell short.”
He said if this was the situation with uniforms for which the tender process had been carried out in time, there was no hope for the shoes for which the tender was yet to be floated.
